499EB51DE4354DE6872586AF006EB4F0 Hearing Summary

Representative Froelich, bill sponsor, introduced HB21-1220. The bill enacts recommendations of the Colorado Child Support Commission concerning the establishment, calculation, and enforcement of child support, including:

• changes to child support guidelines and adjustments to basic child support obligations related to gross income;
• makes the definition of “parent” and “child” consistent with the Colorado Children’s Code;
• reduces the interest rate on unpaid child support after July 1, 2021;
• provides parents who owe child support with a process to request a court to disallow some or all of the calculated interest on their owed child support;
• clarifies that dependency and neglect courts and juvenile courts have concurrent jurisdiction to address parentage;
• removes limitations on increases to child support orders, filed by the state child support enforcement agency, when income information for the parent who owes child support is not available;
• requires life insurance settlements to be reported to the state child support enforcement agency; and
• adds contract employees to the state directory of new hires who must be reported for child support enforcement purposes.

Committee members asked questions of the bill sponsor.

Mr. Jeffrey Ball, representing Colorado Child Support Commission, testified in support of the bill. Mr. Larry Desbien, representing Colorado Department of Human Services - Child Support Services and Colorado Child Support Commission, testified in support of the bill. Mr. Zaven Saroyan, representing Colorado Office of Respondent Parents' Counsel, testified to amend the bill. The witnesses answered questions from committee members.

Committee members continued to ask questions of the previous witnesses.

Submitted written testimony can be found in Attachment A.

Representative Froelich gave final remarks on the bill.

Committee members made final comments on the bill.